Methods for transmitting buffer size information

ABSTRACT

A method of transmitting information about a buffer size includes transmitting a bit string comprising a first bit string and a second bit string when the buffer size is greater than or equal to a first value, the first bit string indicating a quotient which is acquired by dividing the buffer size by a second value, and the second bit string indicating a value corresponding to a remainder which is acquired by dividing the buffer size by the second value.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 2006-108993, filed on Nov. 06, 2006 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

Aspects of the present invention relate to a method of transmitting buffer size information and, more particularly, to a method of precisely transmitting buffer size information without an error.

2. Description of the Related Art

A base station needs to be aware of information about a buffer status of a mobile station in order to transmit data to the mobile station properly. The base station therefore continuously monitors the buffer status of the mobile station. Information about the buffer status includes information about a buffer size of the mobile station. If the base station knows the mobile station's buffer size, the base station can transmit data to the mobile station more effectively. For example, if the mobile station has a small buffer size, the base station may delay transmission of data until the buffer size increases. When the buffer size increases, the base station can transmit the data.

Accordingly, a mobile station continuously transmits buffer size information to the base station. One example of transmitting buffer size information to a base station is the full coding method. The full coding method codes information of the exact (precise) buffer size. In the full coding method, if a buffer has a maximum buffer size of 15,000 bytes, 14 bits are required to transmit the buffer size information. The full coding method requires a comparatively large number of bits to transmit the buffer size information.

Another example of transmitting data to a base station is the logarithmic method. The logarithmic method indicates a buffer size of “A×10B^(B)” according to a first bit string A and a second bit string B. In this instance, the first bit string A indicates a base and the second bit string B indicates an index. However, according to the logarithmic method, as the buffer size increases, the difference between the actual buffer size and a coded buffer size also increases and thus errors become significant. Accordingly, a method of transmitting buffer size information precisely without the introduction of errors is needed.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Aspects of the present invention provide a method of transmitting buffer size information which can utilize a comparatively small number of bits to transmit buffer size information and also can transmit buffer size information having an insignificant size difference between an actual buffer and a coded buffer even when the buffer size increases.

Other aspects of the present invention provide a method of transmitting buffer size information which can transmit information that indicates a precise buffer size when information about a small buffer size is transmitted and thereby can precisely transmit most frequently transmitted buffer size information.

Additional aspects of the present invention provide a method of transmitting buffer size information in which errors with actual buffer sizes exist when a buffer size increases; however, the errors are insignificant and the error does not increase in proportion to an increase of the buffer size.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a communication apparatus including a module to transmit a bit string comprising a first bit string and a second bit string, wherein, when a buffer size of the communication apparatus is greater than or equal to a first value, the first bit string indicates a quotient of the buffer size divided by a second value, and the second bit string indicates a value corresponding to a remainder of the buffer size divided by the second value. Also, when the buffer size is less than the first value, the first bit string indicates the exact buffer size and the second bit string is set to a third value.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a communication apparatus including: a module to transmit a bit string comprising an N bit first bit string and an M bit second bit string, wherein N is the minimum integer for which 2^(2N)−1 is greater than or equal to a maximum buffer size and M is an integer greater than or equal to 2. Also, when the buffer size of the communication apparatus is greater than or equal to 2^(N), the first bit string indicates a quotient of the buffer size divided by 2^(N) and the second bit string indicates a value corresponding to a remainder of the buffer size divided by 2^(N).

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a communication apparatus comprising an extractor to extract an N bit first bit string and an M bit second bit string from a bit string that includes buffer size information received from another communication apparatus; wherein, when the second bit string is a certain value, the first bit string is interpreted as a buffer size of the other communication apparatus.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the communication apparatus interprets a result value as the buffer size of the other communication apparatus when the second bit string is not the certain value. The result value is acquired by multiplying the first bit string by a first value and summing the result of the multiplication and a remainder determined according to the second bit string.

According to a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of transmitting information about a buffer size, including: transmitting a bit string comprising a first bit string and a second bit string when the buffer size is greater than or equal to a first value, the first bit string indicating a quotient of the buffer size divided by a second value and the second bit string indicating a value corresponding to a remainder of the buffer size divided by the second value. In this instance, when the buffer size is less than the first value, the first bit string precisely indicates the buffer size and the second bit string is set to a third value.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of transmitting information about a buffer size, the method including: transmitting a bit string comprising an N bit first bit string and an M bit second bit string, N being the minimum integer for which 2^(2N)−1 is greater than or equal to a maximum buffer size and M being an integer greater than or equal to 2. In this instance, when the buffer size is greater than or equal to 2^(N), the first bit string indicates a quotient of the buffer size divided by 2^(N) and the second bit string indicates a value corresponding to a remainder which of the buffer size divided by 2^(N).

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of receiving buffer size information, the method including: receiving the buffer size information from a communication apparatus; extracting an N bit first bit string and an M bit second bit string from a bit string included in the buffer size information; and interpreting the first bit string as a buffer size of the communication apparatus when the second bit string is a third value.

Additional aspects and/or advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and/or other aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent and more readily appreciated from the following description of the embodiments, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which:

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a buffer status report according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating coding of buffer size information according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a method of coding buffer size information according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating coding of buffer size information for a buffer that has a maximum buffer size of 15,000 bytes according to an embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a method of receiving coded buffer size information and interpreting the same according to an embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

Reference will now be made in detail to present embodiments of the present invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to the like elements throughout. The exemplary embodiments are described below in order to explain the present invention by referring to the figures. As used herein, the term “quotient” refers to the integral portion of the result of dividing two integers.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a buffer status report according to an embodiment of the present invention. A buffer size indicates an available space size in a buffer. A maximum buffer size indicates a physical size of the buffer, the maximum amount of data that can be stored in the buffer. For example, a maximum buffer size of a buffer having a physical size of 16,384 bytes (214 bytes) is 16,384 bytes. When 11,000 bytes of the buffer is being used, i.e., when 11,000 bytes of data is stored in the buffer, the buffer size becomes 5,384 bytes. Accordingly, a mobile station should report a buffer size of the mobile station to a base station so that the base station may allocate resources to the mobile station appropriately.

The mobile station may include a plurality of buffers or may maintain a single buffer corresponding to each service type. For example, the mobile station may maintain a buffer for real-time data, a buffer for lossless data, and the like. Accordingly, the mobile station should report the buffer size for each of the plurality of buffers to the base station.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a mobile station transmits a buffer status report 110 to a base station. The buffer status report 110 includes a plurality of resource blocks. The plurality of resource blocks corresponds to a plurality of buffers of the mobile station respectively. As shown in FIG. 1, a single resource block includes a resource block identifier (ID) 120 and a field 130 for a buffer size. In this instance, the resource block ID 120 indicates the buffer of the mobile station the about which corresponding resource block contains information. The field of the buffer size 130 includes information about the size of a corresponding buffer.

A buffer status report that a mobile station transmits to a base station includes information about a plurality of buffers. Therefore, the fewer bits used to indicate buffer size, the less load on the network the transmission will cause. Since the buffer status report is usually transmitted from the mobile station to the base station continuously, it is desirable to utilize a small number of bits.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating coding of buffer size information according to an embodiment of the present invention. A communication apparatus codes information about a buffer size of the communication apparatus based on a first bit string 210 and a second bit string 220. The first bit string 210 includes N bits, and the second bit string 220 includes M bits. The coded buffer size information is transmitted to another communication apparatus, such as a base station or the like.

In an embodiment of the present invention, N is the minimum integer for which 2^(2N)−1 is greater than or equal to a maximum buffer size. For example, when a buffer has a maximum buffer size of 15,000 bytes, 7 is the integer for which 2^(2N)−1 is greater than or equal to 15,000. When the buffer has a maximum buffer size of 4,000 bytes, 6 is the integer for which 2^(2N)−1 is greater than or equal to 4,000. As described above, the size of a first bit string for buffer coding may be determined from a maximum buffer size.

When the buffer size is less than a first value, the first bit string 210 indicates the precise buffer size and the second bit string 220 is set to a third value. When the first bit string 210 includes N bits, the first value may be set to 2^(N). When the buffer size is less than 2^(N), the exact buffer size may be indicated by the first bit string 210. The second bit string 220 may be set to, for example, zero. Thus, when the buffer size is less than 2^(N), the first bit string 210 indicates the exact value of the buffer size and the second bit string 220 is set to zero (or another predetermined value).

When the buffer size is greater than or equal to the first value, the first bit string 210 indicates quotient of the buffer size divided by a second value and the second bit string 220 indicates a value corresponding to the remainder. In this instance, the second bit string 220 has a value other than the third value. For example, when a buffer size is less than the first value, the second bit string may have a value of zero; when the buffer size is greater than or equal to the first value, the second bit string may have a nonzero value. The second bit string has a size greater than 2 bits to indicate a value corresponding to the remainder of the buffer size divided by a second value. The second bit string corresponds to an integer M greater than or equal to 2.

The first value may be utilized as the second value to divide the buffer size. In the above-described example, when the first value is 2^(N), the second value would also be 2^(N). In this case, when the buffer size is greater than or equal to 2^(N), the first bit string 210 is determined by the quotient of the buffer size divided by 2^(N) and the second bit string 220 is determined by the remainder.

For example, when the second bit string 220 includes 2 bits and the buffer size is less than 2^(N), the second bit string is set to zero. In this case, when the remainder of the buffer size divided by 2^(N) is greater than 0 and less than ⅓ of 2^(N), the second bit string is set to “1”. When the remainder N is between ⅓ of 2^(N) and ⅔ of 2^(N), the second bit string is set to “2”. When the remainder is between ⅔ of 2^(N) and 2^(N), the second bit string is set to “3”.

As described above, when the buffer size is greater than or equal to the first value, the ranges of values for the corresponding values of the second bit string 220 are nearly identical. Although a difference exists, the difference is less than one. When the buffer size is greater than or equal to the first value, values for the second bit string 220 may be set so that the difference between sizes of the corresponding ranges of remainder values is less than 1. In this instance, the difference between the actual buffer size and the coded buffer size does not increase in proportion to the increase of the buffer size.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a technique of coding buffer size information according to an embodiment of the present invention. In operation 310, a communication apparatus verifies a buffer size of the communication apparatus. In operation 320, the communication apparatus compares the buffer size with a first value. According to an embodiment of the present invention, the first value is 2^(N) In this instance, N is the minimum integer for which 2^(2N)−1 is greater than or equal to the maximum buffer size. In operations 330 and 340, a bit string including a first bit string and a second bit string is generated. The first bit string includes N bits and the second bit string includes M bits. The bit string contains buffer size information.

When the buffer size is determined to be less than the first value in operation 320, the first bit string is set to the precise value of the buffer size and the second bit string is set to a third value in operation 330. In this instance, the second bit string may be set to, for example, zero. When the buffer size is determined to be greater than or equal to the first value in operation 320, the first bit string is set to indicate the quotient of the buffer size divided by a second value and the second bit string is set to indicate a value corresponding to the remainder. In this instance, the value of the second bit string is not set to the third value.

The first value may be utilized for the second value to divide the buffer size. As in the above-described example, when the first value is 2^(N), the second value is also 2^(N). When the buffer size is greater than or equal to 2^(N), the first bit string is determined by the quotient of the buffer size divided by 2^(N) and the second bit string is determined by the remainder. The difference between the sizes of the ranges of remainders corresponding to each value of the second bit string is less than or equal to 1.

Once the bit string is generated in operations 330 and 340, the communication apparatus transmits buffer status information containing the bit string to a base station (not shown).

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating coding of buffer size information for a buffer that has a maximum buffer size of 15,000 bytes according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. A first bit string 410 includes N bits and a second bit string 420 includes M bits. In the example illustrated in FIG. 4, N is 7 and M is 2. N is determined by the minimum integer for which 2^(2N)−1 is greater than or equal to a maximum buffer size. In this example, the maximum buffer size is 12,000 bytes. The minimum integer N for which 2^(2N)−1 is greater than or equal to 12,000 is seven. Therefore, the size of the first bit string 410 is 7. Among the integers greater than or equal to 2, the value M corresponding to the size of the second bit string 420 is set to two.

When the buffer size is less than 2⁷ (128), the first bit string 410 accurately indicates the buffer size and the second bit string 420 is set to a third value. In this instance, the third value may be zero. (a1, a0) thus becomes (0, 0). When the buffer size is 37 bytes, (b6, b5, b4, b3, b2, b1, b0) becomes (0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1). When the buffer size is less than 128, information about the buffer size is accurately coded.

When the buffer size is greater than or equal to 2⁷ (128), the first bit string 410 indicates the quotient of the buffer size divided by 2⁷ and the second bit string 420 indicates a value corresponding to the remainder. When the buffer size is 12,000 bytes, 93, the quotient of 12,000 divided by 128, is coded to the first bit string 410. Specifically, (b6, b5, b4, b3, b2, b1, b0) is set to (1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1). The second bit string 420 is determined according to the remainder. In this instance, “0”, which is used when the buffer size is less than 128, is not used. Therefore, the second bit string 420 is 1, 2, or 3, depending on the remainder.

In the example shown in FIG. 4, when the remainder is between 0 and 42, the second bit string 420 becomes “1”, i.e., (a1, a0)=(0, 1). When the remainder is between 43 and 84, the second bit string 420 becomes “2”, i.e., (a1, a0)=(1, 0). When the remainder is between 85 and 127, the second bit string 420 becomes “3”, i.e., (a1, a0)=(1, 1). When the buffer has the size of 12,000 bytes, the remainder of 12,000 divided by 128 is 96. The second bit string 420 therefore becomes “3”, i.e., (a1, a0)=(1, 1).

The difference between the sizes of the ranges of remainders corresponding to each value of the second bit string 420 is less than or equal to 1. In the example illustrated in FIG. 4, the range of possible remainders is 43 when the second bit string 420 has a value of 1, the range of possible remainders is 42 when the second bit string 420 has a value of 2, and the range of possible remainders is 43 when the second bit string 420 has a value of 3. As can be seen, the difference between the sizes of the ranges of possible remainders is at most 1. Since remainder values are almost regularly allocated, a size error between a coded buffer and an actual buffer does not significantly increase even when the buffer size increases.

According to the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 4, when an intermediate value is selected from remainder values which are allocated according to a value of the second bit string 420, an error will be within only 21 bytes even when the buffer size increases. In the example given above, when the first bit string 410 is 93 and the second bit string 420 is 3, the base station interprets a buffer size of the mobile station that transmitted the coded buffer size information as “93×128+106”=“12,010” based on the coded buffer size information. In this instance, “106” is an intermediate value among values from 85 to 127 when the second bit string 420 corresponds to 3. In this example the error between the actual buffer size (12,000 bytes) and the coded byte size (12,010) is only 10 bytes.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a technique of receiving coded buffer size information and interpreting the same according to an embodiment of the present invention. In operation 510, a base station receives buffer size information from a mobile station. In operation 520, the base station extracts an N bit first bit string and an M bit second bit string from a bit string included in the received buffer size information. In the example illustrated in FIG. 4, the base station extracts a top 7 bits from the received bit string and interprets the extracted top 7 bits as the first bit string 410. The base station extracts a bottom 2 bits from the received bit string and interprets the extracted bottom 2 bits as the second bit string 420.

In operation 530, the base station determines whether the second bit string corresponds to a third value, such as zero. When the second bit string is determined to be the third value in operation 530, the base station interprets the first bit string in operation 540 as the buffer size of the mobile station in operation 540. As an example, in the embodiment of FIG. 4, when (a1, a0)=(0, 0) and (b6, b5, b4, b3, b2, b1, b0)=(0,1, 0, 0, 1, 0,1), the base station interprets the buffer size of the mobile station as 37 bytes from the first bit string. Conversely, when the second bit string is determined not to be the third value in operation 530, the base station acquires a result value in operation 550 by multiplying the first bit string by a first value, for example, “128”, and summing the result of the multiplication and a remainder value determined according to the second bit string and interprets the result value as the buffer size of the communication apparatus.

The received first bit string (b6, b5, b4, b3, b2, b1, b0)=(1, 0, 1,1, 1, 0,1) and second bit string (a1, a0)=(1, 1) will be described with reference to FIG. 4. In an embodiment of the present invention, an intermediate value, among values from 85 to 127 when the second bit string corresponds to 3, corresponds to the predetermined remainder value. Therefore, the base station interprets the buffer size of the mobile station as 12,010 bytes from “93×128+106”=“12,010”.

Aspects of the present invention may be embodied in computer-readable media including program instructions to implement various operations performed by a computer. The media may also include, alone or in combination with the program instructions, data files, data structures, and the like. Examples of computer-readable media include magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape; optical media such as CD ROM disks and DVD; magneto-optical media such as optical disks; and hardware devices that are specially configured to store and perform program instructions, such as read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), flash memory, and the like. The media may also be a computer data signal embodied in a carrier wave comprising a compression source code segment and an encryption source code segment (such as data transmission through the Internet). Examples of program instructions include both machine code, such as produced by a compiler, and files containing higher level code that may be executed by the computer using an interpreter. The described hardware devices may be configured to act as one or more software modules in order to perform the operations of the above-described embodiments of the present invention.

Although a few embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes may be made in this embodiment without departing from the principles and spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined in the claims and their equivalents. 

1. A communication apparatus comprising: a module to transmit a bit string comprising a first bit string and a second bit string, wherein, when a buffer size of the communication apparatus is greater than or equal to a first value, the first bit string indicates a quotient of the buffer size divided by a second value and the second bit string indicates a value corresponding to a remainder of the buffer size divided by the second value.
 2. The communication apparatus of claim 1, wherein, when the buffer size is less than the first value, the first bit string indicates the exact buffer size and the second bit string is set to a third value.
 3. The communication apparatus of claim 2, wherein, when the buffer size is greater than or equal to the first value, the second bit string is not set to the third value.
 4. The communication apparatus of claim 3, wherein the first bit string comprises N bits and the first value is 2^(N).
 5. The communication apparatus of claim 4, wherein the second bit string comprises M bits and M is an integer greater than or equal to
 2. 6. The communication apparatus of claim 5, wherein, when the buffer size is greater than or equal to the first value, the ranges of values corresponding to each value of the second bit string are nearly identical.
 7. The communication apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first bit string comprises N bits and the first value is 2^(N).
 8. The communication apparatus of claim 7, wherein N is the minimum integer for which 2^(2N)−1 is greater than or equal to a maximum buffer size.
 9. The communication apparatus of claim 7, wherein N is
 7. 10. The communication apparatus of claim 1, wherein the second bit string comprises M bits and M is an integer greater than or equal to
 2. 11. The communication apparatus of claim 1, wherein the second value is identical to the first value.
 12. The communication apparatus of claim 11, wherein the second value is 2^(N).
 13. A communication apparatus comprising: a module to transmit a bit string comprising an N bit first bit string and an M bit second bit string, wherein N is the minimum integer for which 2^(2N)−1 is greater than or equal to a maximum buffer size and M is an integer greater than or equal to
 2. 14. The communication apparatus of claim 13, wherein: the first bit string indicates a quotient of the buffer size divided by 2^(N); and the second bit string indicates a value corresponding to a remainder of the buffer size divided by 2^(N), when the buffer size of the communication apparatus is greater than or equal to 2^(N).
 15. The communication apparatus of claim 14, wherein, when the buffer size is greater than or equal to 2^(N), a difference between sizes of ranges of remainders corresponding to each value of the second bit string is less than or equal to
 1. 16. The communication apparatus of claim 13, wherein, when the buffer size is less than 2^(N), the first bit string precisely indicates the buffer size and the second string is set to a third value.
 17. The communication apparatus of claim 16, wherein, when the buffer size is greater than or equal to 2^(N), the second bit string is not the third value.
 18. A communication apparatus comprising: an extractor to extract an N bit first bit string and an M bit second bit string from a bit string that includes buffer size information received from another communication apparatus; wherein, when the second bit string is a certain value, the first bit string is interpreted as a buffer size of the other communication apparatus.
 19. The communication apparatus of claim 18, wherein a result value is interpreted as the buffer size of the other communication apparatus when the second bit string is not the certain value, the result value being acquired by multiplying the first bit string by a first value and summing the result of the multiplication and a value determined according to the second bit string.
 20. The communication apparatus of claim 18, wherein the first value is 2^(N).
 21. A method of transmitting information about a buffer size, the method comprising: transmitting a bit string comprising a first bit string and a second bit string when the buffer size is greater than or equal to a first value, the first bit string indicating a quotient of the buffer size divided by a second value and the second bit string indicating a value corresponding to a remainder of the buffer size divided by the second value.
 22. The method of claim 21, wherein, when the buffer size is less than the first value, the first bit string precisely indicates the buffer size and the second bit string is set to a third value.
 23. The method of claim 22, wherein, when the buffer size is greater than or equal to the first value, the second bit string is not set to the third value.
 24. The method of claim 21, wherein the first bit string comprises N bits and the first value is 2^(N).
 25. The method of claim 24, wherein N is the minimum integer for which 2^(2N)−1 is greater than or equal to a maximum buffer size.
 26. The method of claim 21, wherein the second bit string comprises M bits and M is an integer greater than or equal to
 2. 27. The method of claim 26, wherein the first value and the second value are 2^(N).
 28. A method of transmitting information about a buffer size, the method comprising: transmitting a bit string comprising an N bit first bit string and an M bit second bit string, N being the minimum integer for which 2^(2N)−1 is greater than or equal to a maximum buffer size, and M being an integer greater than or equal to
 2. 29. The method of claim 28, wherein, when the buffer size is greater than or equal to 2^(N), the first bit string indicates a quotient of the buffer size divided by 2^(N) and the second bit string indicates a value corresponding to a remainder of the buffer size divided by 2^(N).
 30. The method of claim 29, wherein, when the buffer size is greater than or equal to 2^(N), a difference between sizes of ranges of remainder values corresponding to each value of the second bit string is less than or equal to
 1. 31. The method of claim 28, wherein, when the buffer size is less than 2^(N), the first bit string precisely indicates the buffer size and the second string is set to a third value.
 32. The method of claim 31, wherein, when the buffer size is greater than or equal to 2^(N), the second bit string is not set to the third value.
 33. A method of receiving buffer size information, the method comprising: receiving buffer size information from a communication apparatus; extracting an N bit first bit string and an M bit second bit string from a bit string included in the buffer size information; and interpreting the first bit string as a buffer size of the communication apparatus when the second bit string is a certain value.
 34. The method of claim 33, further comprising, when the second bit string is not the certain value: acquiring a result value by multiplying the first bit string by a first value and summing the result of the multiplication and a second value determined according to the second bit string; and interpreting the result value as the buffer size of the communication apparatus.
 35. The method of claim 34, wherein the first value is 2^(N).
 36. A computer readable recording medium storing a program for implementing a method of transmitting information about a buffer size, comprising: transmitting a bit string comprising a first bit string and a second bit string when the buffer size is greater than or equal to a first value, the first bit string indicating a quotient of the buffer size divided by a second value and the second bit string indicating a value corresponding to a remainder of the buffer size divided by the second value.
 37. A method of transmitting a buffer size, the method comprising: transmitting a buffer status report comprising a plurality of resource blocks, wherein each resource block includes a resource block ID and a buffer size; wherein the buffer size is a bit string corresponding to an approximation of the size of a buffer of a mobile terminal and the error of the approximation does not increase in proportion to an increase in the buffer size.
 38. A method of transmitting a buffer size, the method comprising: transmitting a bit string corresponding to an approximation of a size of a buffer of a mobile terminal, wherein the error of the approximation does not increase in proportion to an increase in the buffer size. 